ทุกไม่กี่ปี จะมี visual revamp ใหม่ใน Firefox ก่อนหน้านี้เรามี classic look แล้ว Australis แล้ว Quantum ซึ่งค่อนข้างให้ old look แต่ใน new guise และตอนนี้ Mozilla กำลังมุ่งมั่นสู่ makeover อีกครั้งชื่อ Proton UI refresh ดูเหมือนจะเป็น all the rage ยกเว้นผมไม่เห็นว่าทำไมต้องมีอันนี้ แต่เฮ้ modern problems require modern solutions หรือบางอย่าง
ผมอยากได้ early glimpse ของการเปลี่ยนแปลง ส่วนใหญ่เพื่อดูว่าควรคาดหวังอะไร ตามที่คุณ recall จาก articles และ rants ของผม ผมพบ Australis abominable Quantum okay และตอนนี้ผมไม่แน่ใจว่าทำไม Firefox ควร modified อีกครั้ง หากด้วย any measure เราดู competition เช่น Chrome สิ่งที่ทำให้มัน popular definitely isn't any series of UI changes เพราะ largely มันไม่ได้เปลี่ยนมากนักตั้งแต่เริ่มต้น Not that Firefox should ape Chrome far from it But the sense of activity associated with visual polish doesn't necessarily translate into anything meaningful Whether it does well we need to see Early hands on let's see
Get your proton shake
วันนี้ เพื่อรัน Firefox Proton คุณต้องการ handful of extra tweaks และ changes หนึ่ง Nightly build of the browser สอง whole handful of about:config changes ที่ activate different options available in Proton Ghacks has already outlined these preferences so there's no point for me rehashing it all in hope of an extra page view I'm here to talk about the final product per se Once these tweaks are in place start (or restart) your Nightly and begin to experiment
The visuals
Proton comes with two major changes - the new tab shape and size และ the redesign in menus รวมถึง new tab page ที่นี่ แทน checkboxes คุณตอนนี้มี mobile-like toggles สำห stuff เช่น shortcuts Pocket recommendations snippets และ more Meh อย่างไรก็ตาม คุณสามารถ disable everything และมี simple clean tab without any nonsense
The other big change - no more icons in the Hamburger menu Meh หนึ่ง extra indentation ซึ่ง visually jarring สอง what's wrong with the icons? หาก purpose คือ create visual consistency with the rest of the menus then okay Otherwise what's the point of this change and what ergonomic quality does it bring? Or is this another Chrome-like copypasta - Chrome doesn't have icons so Firefox shouldn't either? If anything if that's the case it should do the exact opposite! So far two or three iterations of visual copypasta have done nothing to make Firefox stand out in the crowd It goes back to me old adage: I don't want Firefox to look and behave like Chrome If I wanted it that way I'd use Chrome as my primary browser
Customization
The great power of Firefox remains its flexibility ผมลอง create a normal look for myself และสามารถทำได้ without any great difficulty คุณสามารถ go by without having any stupid suggestions in the address bar คุณสามารถ remove the unnecessary search engines และ with the same tweak I used in Firefox 75 คุณสามารถ get rid of the over-large zoom-in address bar feature
As you can see I also removed the "flexible" space and added the search box because I value my eight-digit IQ
At the end of the day after some tweaking Firefox Nightly - apart from the new tabs - looked just like before The addons work the browser does the job I can't discern any other great changes or features Of course things will change and it's still too early to focus on performance
If you actually bothered reading up to this point you may be tempted to think or say: Dedo you don't understand there's so much more that can be done to make the browser experience more XYZ The thing is the browser has one function - serving pages The fact companies want to turn them into some sort of interactive shiny turd doesn't change the reality I don't want an 6D immersive portal of color and ads and games I want a simple tool that does a simple job
สรุป
I don't see any major value in this revamp On its own the name Proton while full of punchy sounds is also tricky Because it's associated with tons of other products - including but not limited to mail service car manufacturer gaming engine and so on Then the tab redesign and the icon stripping from menus don't add any great value I really don't understand - for the time being that is - how this is going to contribute in any great way to the success of Firefox
'Tis a painful realization for me because I want Firefox to remain around alive and relevant and fun because at the moment it's the only thing that makes the Internet still usable especially on the mobile A last bastion of semi-sanity in the great ocean of idiocracy But then that does not mean I blindly embrace whatever Mozilla has in its repertoire of daily surprises
And at this point I'm not sure how Mozilla can recapture some of the lost market share Yes the nerds are now all waking up shouting privacy but a) nerds are a tiny tiny minority b) these are the same nerds that help convert everyone to Chrome because JAVASCRIPT SPEED in the last few years My view is this should be Mozilla's one and only argument - privacy Everything else is a game of attrition that it cannot win Simple innocent privacy and a calm quiet browser that does not upend established usage patterns the opposite of what Mozilla is occasionally doing
Idiots don't care either way and nerds deeply care about any change in their ecosystem Revamping the UI is a lose-lose situation really and a waste of resources Privacy is going to be the next battlefield and here Mozilla has a huge lead over its competitors Hopefully this is where the browser's future and focus will be And trust me you don't want to contemplate the Internet future without Firefox Nerds you've been warned
Cheers
